The Potential of VR

[Heijoushin]

How are you gentlemen. I went to the Tokyo Game Show yesterday. Most of the games being demonstrated were VR or augmented reality and it got me thinking about VR again. 

 

Some genres obviously work better than others. Dating sims, and well, porn, are obvious contenders. Any sort of game that could take place in a single room or area is also viable. Naturally something like boxing works (I played a boxing/karaoke game yesterday. Weird combination. You know how hard it is to try to hit something and read lyrics/sing at the same time?). I think a game where you pilot a fighter craft or giant robot would have great potential since the player just has to sit stationery in his c ckpit / living room and the events could unfold in VR around him.

 

Secondly, what technologies to work on? Yesterday, one company was showing off a "smells in VR" feature (the headset includes a piece over your nose that produces smell). That seems to me very gimmicky. I can't see it being widely used in games. Rather, I think they should work on a more "glove-like" controller. For it to truly feel like VR, I think people want to directly use their hands, and always holding a controller makes it just feel like an advanced nintendo wii or something. 

 

Anyway, excuse my rambling. Do you guys think VR games are going to take off any time soon? Or is it another trend doomed to die? 

 

One of my favorite gaming youtube channels argues that it won't take off: 

[HooAmEye]

Honestly, I kinda see it like 3d tv at the moment. While there is a wave of initial hype, the stage now seems mostly ambivilant with companies pushing it. There is a ridiculous amount of problems with the hardware at the moment (controls/ motion sickness / input delay), I just don't see it catching on any time soon

[injurai]

I'm kind of waiting to see what Valve puts out. A proper full length game that goes beyond just 8 hours of gimmicks is what I need to be sold on it. In the end I think VR will best be used in racing games.

[213374U]

I see it taking off once they iron out the kinks. Sims and racing (and pr0n, ofc) games seem like the perfect games for this, but the ability to look around without having to turn is probably something you could get used to having in FPSs. The Alien Isolation VR mod looked sweet, for instance. A glove controller of sorts might be nice, but I'm not sure how well it could work without some sort of physical feedback.

 

Jumping around like a moron in your living room, knocking into furniture? Maybe not so much, so not really "virtual reality" as much as, uh, simply 3D headsets. Bandwagoneers gon' bandwagon, though.

[Jozape]

I see it taking off once they iron out the kinks. Sims and racing (and pr0n, ofc) games seem like the perfect games for this, but the ability to look around without having to turn is probably something you could get used to having in FPSs. The Alien Isolation VR mod looked sweet, for instance. A glove controller of sorts might be nice, but I'm not sure how well it could work without some sort of physical feedback.

 

Jumping around like a moron in your living room, knocking into furniture? Maybe not so much, so not really "virtual reality" as much as, uh, simply 3D headsets. Bandwagoneers gon' bandwagon, though.

 

Agreed. Anything that's first-person can benefit from this really but game developers need to abandon the weird novelty controls and movement for most things. Keyboard and mouse really should be okay as long as you're not one of those kids raised on nothing but smartphones. Any conventional controls that normally require muscle memory should be okay really.

[Hurlshort]

It makes me sick. I'm not alone, either, it is a huge problem with the whole concept.

 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/virtual-reality-has-motion-sickness-problem

[Lexx]

I've played Superhot VR and it's damn awesome. If you have the space for it, that is.. because you *need* to be able to walk around at least a little bit. If you can do that, it's a very unique gaming experience.

 

I've also played Doom 3 in VR. This also works pretty good, but here you notice the lack of "weapon weight" a lot. You see this big weapon in front of you, but you just can't feel it. 

When I tried Half-Life², I had to stop after ~20 minutes, because it made me feel extremely sick. The whole character movement and speed just doesn't work in VR.

 

The biggest problem with VR for me as of now is:

1. pixels - the resolution simply isn't there yet and

2. heat. I can't use the Oculus in summer, because the lenses are fogging up. There is no ventilation or anything, so it's pretty much unusable. Also they changed the warranty a while ago and added that damage due to sweat, etc. isn't covered anymore. Obviously they had a crapton of folks with this issue, which made me scared of using the headset too much (especially when it is fogging up). The price is too high to get your hardware destroyed because of this design flaw.

 

 

/Edit: Other than that, it's worth it for Google VR alone already, imo. The graphic quality is.. well, not perfect, but it's still very impressive. Vienna, Tokyo, Vancouver, ... you can put yourself on the edge of a skyscraper, or become a peasant in the streets. Only thing that's missing are ambient graphics for cars and animals.

/Edit2: At one point I was sitting down in the livingroom, sitting in the grand canyon while listening to music. Very chill.

Edited September 24, 2017 by Lexx

[Bokishi]

I play VR everyday.

 

Google Earth is awesome now with the street view update.

 

New Retro Arcade lets me customize and play/live in an arcade from the late 80s.

 

H3VR lets me customize and shoot any gun I want.

 

Robo-Recall lets me rip robots heads off.

 

Alien Isolation /w vr hack makes me crap my pants (especially while wearing my Sennheisers /w 600ohm amp; holy crap that xeno will actually kill me).

 

Project Cars 2 lets me race expensive cars on realistically rainy tracks.

 

Lone Echo let’s me feel like I’m weightless in an interactive space station, good story too (probably the best vr space experience right now)

 

And I can watch movies with friends in a realistic scale theatre with Big Screen.

 

Currently waiting for Fallout 4 VR

Edited September 24, 2017 by Bokishi

[Bokishi]

Just backed the Pimax 8K X VR Kickstarter

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pimax8kvr/pimax-the-worlds-first-8k-vr-headset

 

Has nearly twice the viewing angle as Oculus/Vive for true peripheral vision, and 2x 4K screens (1 for each eye). Will require a next gen gpu though...

Edited October 18, 2017 by Bokishi

[Rosbjerg]

In its current form it's too limited and offers little compared to a standard gaming experience. Just like motion sensoring.. I don't think VR will really take off before we have comfortable VR glasses which does not create dizziness for 1/3 of it's source costumers - or before we have living room holographic technology.

[Hurlshort]

I am waiting on those Star Trek Holorooms.

[Rosbjerg]

I am waiting on those Star Trek Holorooms.

 

I'd go full Barclay.

[Katphood]

My take on VR? Short and simple: I don't have the money!

 

PS VR is affordable but at this point am not sure whether it's VR or 'The Poor Man's VR'. It has a few good games and a ton of filler low budget 'VR experiences'. The only thing that caught my attention was this VR game called Apollo 11. I would love to know the terror the astronauts felt while travelling through the darkness that is space. Scary stuff!

 

But yeah, good VR to me right now is the HTC Vive and that thing is not only expensive, but it also needs a very capable PC to support it. 

[evilcat]

My take: VR is great but not for gaming. Since big screen or PC open enought gaming experience, video games are more about gameplay than visuals.

 

I would be more interested in VR experience like ability to visit any place on earth, and walk by. Like walk on streets of Rome but with option to switch off other tourist.

Or use it as virtual laboratory when we can do chemistry without risk of blowing up.

 

There may be some genres perfect for VR like detective games or tank simulators. But they are niche and use expansive gear. LIttle gamers means less expansive games. Less money to make so it will die out. Since it will be more profitable to do games for wider audience.

Edited October 20, 2017 by evilcat

[SonicMage117]

The potential of VR is great, but it still needs A LOT of time to get to the place where the fanboys are claiming.

 

There are really 3 types of games on VR:

 

1.) Short, high-end tech demos. These "games" are being sold on places like Steam and only last from 5 minutes to 30 minutes. They should be free. These are the biggest type of VR games on the market unfortunately.

 

2.) Block-ish looking games that have legnth. They focus on the movement or the controls but lack in the graphics department, which is ironic and self-contradictive od that VR is supposed to push in itself. Immersing us in 3D blocks? I'm not a graphics whore but when the majority of 8 hour non-VR games look better than an 8 hour VR game something seems wrong.

 

3.) The VR community isn't to smart or welcoming. Alot of them go around to different non-VR forums, saying they believe that 2D pixelated games should become extinct and that VR should replace everything, calling people names for prefering non-VR or playing pixel-art games. As well as begging devs to add VR compatability all while shouting "We'll only buy your game if you have VR" lol

 

4.) The VR audience is VERY small. 350,000 users on Steam (the only VR marketplace that really matters) and around 60,000 VR users on PS4. Both are virtually nothing and that's the very reason why many big time devs aren't willing to shell out a budget to make a game actually worth playing. Look at Doom VFR, it uses teleportation, strips VR users from so many features that it's literally not Doom anymore but a roller coaster simulator. This is a huge problem for VR gaming.

 

It has alot of potential but the hardware needs work, the community is toxic and the best games are demos that do not last over half hour on average. Everything needs work.

 

Of course there are regular $59.99 games that support VR but only a couple really do a good job as interjecting that into the game and not making it feel tacked on. Remembering that these games were not built with VR in mind is something that we should all be mundful of. We just don't need VR yet, I suspect VR won't really be useful til a few years and not what the fanboys claim until another 10 years.